Your Skin is Ice Cold
by The Author and Self
Summary: A separate storyline from the Blood is Thicker series, using the same characters though. Spencer was followed home and attacked by some stranger in the night. The next day he was deathly ill. What's happening to him? Why? Please read and review!
1. The Sickness

**A/N:**

**NEW (SIDE) SERIES!**

**I apologize, as a writer I am being schizophrenic at best, but the idea struck me. I don't expect huzzah's from my normal audience because it's not what they expect out of me, but what you don't know is that most of my fanfiction has been prohibited by the canon author the be posted on the internet. Like Anne Rice, for example. This could be seen as a crossover or just an extremely NOT canon Criminal Minds fic. It's just that stuff like what I'm about to write doesn't happen on the show. If you want to leave, go ahead. However, if you'd like to keep an open mind, you might find it pleasantly good. **

**The events that transpire after Blood is Thicker do not transpire in this storyline. It is completely different. **

**One**

Dr. Spencer Reid grabbed his thick wool coat around him and pulled the scarf tighter against the biting December wind as he took large strides out of the BAU and made his way to the subway station. Night was settling in and the clear, navy sky yielded no stars due to the light pollution of Quantico. He slid his card through the gates and entered the station where huge steel tubes roared through the platforms, blowing wind and paper through the throngs of unimpressed people, all shivering.

He took quick steps to his train once it opened up and hopped in just before the doors opened. He obliviously walked in and sat near the middle, pulling out some of his case files to go over. Perhaps get a jump start on his "homework" as Haley liked to call it. He grinned to himself at the thought of his little sister coming home for Christmas this year. It was only a matter of days until she got there.

He looked up, noticing the entire train was empty. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He closed his eyes tightly and exhaled as he turned around. In the corner slouched an extraordinarily pale man with a ratty hoodie covering his eyes. Spencer didn't have to see those, he just knew that the man was watching him, and it seemed he had been watching the genius for some time now.

Spencer gave a nod and a casual wave to the shady character in the back. Why did he pick this section of the subway? Why at this time? Why to this place? Why?

He sat and pondered the meanings of his actions until the train came to a halt at his stop. He immediately hopped up and rushed out. He began to walk briskly down the sidewalk toward his apartment building and made it to the door, quickly entering and nearly sprinting up the stairs to his hallway to his room. Spencer promptly locked every bolt on his door and armed his security system. Why was he so freaked out?

Safely in his apartment, he shook it off as one of his many why's and went to take a hot shower and get some rest. As he did these things, he couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, the prickles on the back of his neck never went away. He turned his bedside lamp off.

--

4:30 AM, Spencer's alarm clock went off in its usual way, but the man himself groggily slapped it silent and rubbed his temples, trying to rub away the migraine that had come to him overnight. He felt his forehead and ran his hand through his sweaty head as he realized that he had an extraordinarily high fever.

He sat up carefully and began to crawl out of his bed in a feeble attempt to check just how high the fever was with a thermometer. Carefully, he stood shakily and tried to take another trembling step. The young doctor blacked out.

Three hours later, he woke and looked at the red numbers of his clock. 7:30, late for work, of course. Instead of trying to stand again, he reached up and grabbed his cell phone from the bedside table, pressing his speed dial.

"Reid," said Hotch on the other line, seemingly relieved. "Where are you?"

"Sick," Spencer managed to croak as he tried to shake Hotch's resonating voice out of his head. "Don't talk so loud…" he muttered.

"Get some rest; you've been working yourself a little hard lately, all right? I don't want to see you back here until you're completely well again, got it?"

"Yeah," Reid rasped. "Bye." He snapped the phone shut, reaching to put it back on the side table. Shivering due to the fever, he literally climbed back into the bed and pulled the covers over his head. Every part of him was sore. _It must be the flu_. He thought as darkness crept into his vision and carried him to sleep.

--

A beep from his phone woke the young genius as he sat bolt upright. He could tell that the fever had left him, he was still a little cold, but it might be the AC that he left on when he had fallen asleep. He felt great, albeit starving. He looked at his clock, 8:00 PM. Again the phone beeped and he picked it up, flipping it open and stopping at the date. He had been asleep for two days. "What?" he whispered. He listened to his messages, all the team wondering where he was, how he was doing, get well soon, the whole nine yards.

Why had he not woken up? Was he sick? Yes, it was coming back to him now, he was very sick just a day ago. What had happened?

Flashes of the night he had come scared back to his apartment: the man in the hoodie attacking him, clawing and scratching at him. Biting him?

His hand flashed to the nape of his neck and he felt a slight lump. It was swollen, but seemingly in the last stages of that and decreasing rapidly. Even now he could feel it return to its normal state. "That's not normal," he furrowed his brow as he stood up and got out of bed. Walking briskly to the bathroom and turned on the light. He stopped dead as he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

He zoomed up to it, looking at his hyperdilated eye. There was no color left, just blackness with a slight redness around the rims. His face had become harsher, whiter, much whiter. He hated to be vain, but he was extremely attractive, and he felt it now too, rather than enduring Garcia's insistence on the niceness of his looks. He ran a hand through his hair. "What the hell?" he asked his reflection and half-expected it to talk back. But wait, what was this? As he had asked the reflection, he noticed something funny with his teeth. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut again. _Were those fangs? Those weren't fangs. They couldn't be fangs._ He opened his mouth to examine once more. _Good God those are fangs._

That didn't matter now, though. He was ravenous, starving. In fact, Spencer felt like he was completely wasting away. The feeling had just hit him and he nearly doubled over with it, the pain in his belly stretching to every nerve of his body as he cried out and gasped, knocking himself against the bathroom wall. Suddenly, he found himself at the front door, but too hungry to wrestle with the locks. He was suddenly at his fridge, ripping it open and going for the raw hamburger meat. He just took handfuls and handfuls, shoving them into his mouth, savoring the taste, but never getting enough. When his senses returned to him, he found himself sitting on the floor, licking the Styrofoam tray that the meat once sat in and threw it to the ground, screaming, backing into the kitchen's walls. "What's happening to me?"

He didn't know what to do, he didn't know what he was, or at least, he didn't believe in what he was. As a small child, he wasn't afraid of vampires and zombies, but pathogens released into the air. Natures very real and very lethal killers.

But this? He didn't know what to make of this. He stood and made his way back to his bedroom, absentmindedly putting normal clothes on and feeling slightly awkward doing it. He felt vicious and powerful, such a normal activity didn't seem right at the moment. He found himself grabbing his wallet and his phone. "Garcia," he muttered to himself. "Garcia'll know what's happening."

She was the most accepting of the group, he hated to admit. His female confidant, she would understand more than Morgan would, he was sure. He knew she loved the fantastic and surreal, maybe she would know what was going on with him? He slipped his shoes on and made his way out the door. Garcia would know.


	2. Penelope

**A/N:**

**Something I forgot to mention in the last author's note. I mentioned Anne Rice, but these are not her vampires. None of her vampires will be mentioned in this story. I don't mean any copyright infringement. Just in case there's a misunderstanding, I don't mean anything by it.**

**Two**

Reid hung up the phone on the subway, where he was on his way to Garcia's apartment. She had picked up worried after seeing his name on the caller ID. "It's not like you to miss work, even if you _are_ sick," she had said. "You okay, Honey?"

"I- I don't know, Garcia," Reid had muttered. He found that his voice had become smoother, more liquid, and he tried to make it sound like his old, grainy-sounding voice. In fact, he had discovered a lot of things on his way to Garcia's place. For example: if he shut his eyes, he could still tell exactly how many people were in the subway with him and their genders. His hearing had become extremely acute, he could hear the rats squeaking as the shuttle passed them in the tunnel. He no longer needed his glasses.

A negative was that everyone was staring at him. "Isn't he that model?" he heard a girl ask several rows behind him.

"No," came the lower voice of her friend. "He looks like him though, cute."

Spencer stiffened and held his breath. He found that he could do that, too. Not breathe. This had frightened him more than anything else. It proved that he might be, in some impossible way, dead. The worst part was that his hamburger was wearing off. He felt like he needed something more substantial, what exactly that was, he refused to think about.

The static surrounded voice of the speakers above announced his stop and he got up, unable to not flash a look at the girls who were talking about him, and left. Morgan would have said to go for it, but right now, he wasn't concerned about that. He only wanted to see Garcia.

He walked the three blocks to her building and buzzed her. "Hey, babe, I see you. I'll be right down," she said. He could hear her smiling. A half minute later, and Spencer couldn't _believe_ how long it took for her to get down there, Penelope opened the door and froze. "Spencer, sweetie, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," he moaned, imploring her with his eyes to let him come with her. "I need your help, Penelope."

"Sure, of course, Spence. I would never turn you away," she said quickly as she shooed him inside in front of her. Spencer purposely made his natural gait slower so that Penelope could keep up with him up the stairs, and still she was at least five behind him the entire trip.

Finally, they entered her purple living room and she closed and locked the door. "Be glad I came home early, hon. You wouldn't have me to help."

"Thanks," he said, his mind somewhere else as he stared at the room. He hadn't been here since she was shot, and then the colors hadn't seemed so vivid. Such bright, contrasting colors flashing up at him made him almost have to squint his super-sensitive eyes, this served as a stark contrast to his hunter-green room and mostly neutral-toned place.

"Let me look at you," she said, as though immediately knowing that what had happened was more of a physical thing than anything else. "Might if I turn the overhead lights on?"

"No, they colors'll blind me," he tried to joke, even adding a little grin, but not making her feel better. "Lamps are good, though."

She nodded and flipped on about five small lamps that were scattered through the front of the house, casting a soft glow that made the vivid colors a little more tolerable. "Now sit," she said authoritatively pointing to a small ottoman in front of the couch, where she sat. "I need to see your face, and baby, you're really tall."

He obeyed and sat in the light, looking at her nose.

Garcia gasped once she saw him in the light. "Spencer Reid, when did you become a supermodel?" she asked.

He looked down and grinned in embarrassment. "Garcia, don't. Just… check me out okay?"

"Oh, I'm checking you out."

"I'm serious! You could tell there was something wrong with me when you first saw! Help!" he raised his voice, frustrated.

He only realized just how loud he was when he saw Garcia's surprised face. "Jeez, baby…"

"I- I'm so sorry. Penelope, I really didn't mean to. I mean, I didn't know I could be that loud. I'm just really, really… well… I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm terrified," he began to ramble.

She pushed his jawbone up. "New look, same Spence," she mused. "Your eyes," she furrowed her brow, "What happened to the brown?"

"Gone."

"It can't just be gone," she tried to reason.

"That's what I said."

"And you're really fast," she said. "I noticed coming up the stairs. And you're absolutely frigid! Now open your mouth again. Don't start talking or I'll sock you."

"I think it would hurt you more than me," he muttered and opened up.

"Well would you look at those choppers," her eyes widened.

"So you see them too, right? I'm not insane?"

"No, sweetie, you're not insane. I think _I_ might be though. Reid, how do you not know what happened?"

"I do know what _happened_," he said. "I just don't think I _want_ to know what happened to _me_."

"I think you've just got to face facts," she said. "Tell me everything."

Spencer stood up from the ottoman, feeling more like moving than anything else, and paced as he told her about the bald man in the black hood. He told her about his "dream" about him attacking him. He described the symptoms of the sudden onslaught of illness, about his two day snooze and the events that transpired earlier that evening.

"I don't think you were dreaming, baby," she said softly, flopped into the couch in disbelief. "And I absolutely can't question your perfect recall. Many have tried, all have failed. Now it's all a matter of you accepting it." She stood and looked at him pityingly, walking toward him to hug him.

As the human approached him, his hunger roared. Images of killing her, her blood running all over the nice white rug, flashed through his mind and stuck.

"Garcia, no!" he flashed to the other side of the room before she could reach him.

"Ah!" she squealed and grabbed her left hand, holding it to her chest as she looked up, keeping the tears from spilling out of her eyes. "It's okay; it's o-o-o-okay."

"Penelope! Oh, my God! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Reid suddenly was next to her again, holding out his hand. The beast in him roared again.

"You aren't breathing," she wondered.

"Just let me see," he said stiffly as she gave her hurt wrist over, now swelling.

"Must've hit it when you whizzed right on by, huh? So, what's the verdict, doc?" she asked, trying to make light of the situation. _Bless her_, he thought.

"Sprained," he uttered, held up his finger as if to say _Excuse me for a moment_, ran across the room and inhaled a lungful of air, and ran right back. "Do you have a brace?" he asked a bit more fluidly this time.

"Yeah," Penelope said, flustered. "I do. I'll go get it. Why aren't you breathing, again?"

She made it across the room and he inhaled again. "You cannot talk and not breathe. You need air for that."

"So I figured," she said, rummaging through the closet and grabbing a brace. "You never answered my question, hot shot."

"Oh, um… I don't really think you want to hear that, um, Penelope."

She looked at him, confused, then he watched as the realization crossed her face. "Oh… OH! Oh, Spencer, why didn't you tell me? What did you do last time?"

"The ground chuck?" he answered, almost not even willing to dwell on it.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! Okay, yeah. I've got some steaks in there; Morgan brought them over a few days ago. He says I don't have enough meat in the house."

"Can… can I…?" he began to ask as he licked his lips, thinking of the relief he would feel once he could… could just _bite into it_.

She saw the expression on his face change, his black eyes staring more intently across the room. She saw his fist almost shaking from grabbing the arm of her sofa so hard. "Go for it," she nodded quietly.

"Please, Penelope. I don't want you to see this, all right?" he asked stiffly, tingles going down his back as it grew harder and harder to resist whirling around and going for his friend instead of the cold meat. "Go- go to your room, and lock the door. Don't come out until I let you know it's okay."

She said nothing, but walked backwards to her room, feeling behind her for the knob. Her knees were weak like Jello. Seeing her Spencer act this way… like an animal… nearly ripped her heart in two. He didn't ask for this, it just happened. But what would happen to him? His life? He had only just begun. As she saw his breathing get heavier and his fangs bared, she turned the knob and rushed inside of her room, in one solid movement locking the door and flipping on the light switch.

Penelope could hear the sounds of him searching frantically through her little refrigerator. Then came a sort of blissful silence as he must have found the steaks. Slowly, disgusting sounds of ripping meat floated to her ears; it was enough to make anyone a vegetarian. Suddenly quiet and she heard the sound of Styrofoam hit the floor and a gentle whimpering.

_You're stupid! He told you not to leave until he came for you_, said her logical side.

_The poor dear is devastated_, said her heart.

"Spencer?" she poked her head out.

The cries suddenly stopped and she heard his voice carry across the room. "Yeah?" It was different, but still definitely Reid's voice. The upward lilt to it, the way it sounded like bubbles when he got excited, random words that wouldn't make sense to anyone would just pop.

"Are you… you okay?"

She heard an ironic laugh from her kitchen. "You gotta stop asking me that," he said. "Let me clean up."

"You don't have to hide from me, Spencer," Penelope said indignantly as she marched into the kitchen and stared. "How quickly were you planning on getting all this up?" she asked, eyes wide.

Blood from the steak was everywhere on the floor and the cabinets and Spencer as he looked down at himself and shook his head. He looked up at her and tried to smile, but she saw where he had buried his face in his bloody hands and her heart melted for him. "Oh, silly Dr. Reid," she said. "Get up, go to my room and change. I might have some man-clothes in there." She began to take out the cleaning supplies.

He was about to ask her why she would have man-clothes in her room but decided that not knowing would be a lot better. "I've gotta clean this up. I made this mess; it's how my mother raised me."

"A vampire talking about how his mother raised him," she grinned. "Wow."

"I'm not one of those!" he admonished as he turned and walked to his friend's room and began to go through the closet.

"Then what _are_ you?" Penelope shrugged. "A chupacabra?"

"I don't suck goats," he said.

"_What?_"

"Chupacabra means 'goat sucker'," he mused and walked out in a white, collared button up shirt and some jeans. He didn't look like himself at all, but he didn't look bad.

Penelope looked up at him and feigned a swoon. "Oh, Edward! How you dazzle me!"

Spencer rolled his eyes. "I don't want to hear anything about that," he said as he crouched down, ready to help clean.

"You've read those?" Garcia got excited.

"Haley has," he held up his hand as if to calm her down. "Hold your guns. She should be showing up… today. Oh, God she's coming today!" he stood straight up. "She's probably home now. Penelope, what should I do?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Tell her, duh."

"She'll think I'm _psychotic_!"

"Did I?"

"Well, that's why I came to you first," he rubbed the back of his neck, pacing again.

"Spencer!" she caught his attention. "Spencer, you go. Okay? You aren't going to hurt her because you just… you just ate. I'll keep red meat on hand for you whenever decide to pop in at nine PM again."

"I'm sorry I imposed."

"You never impose. Now get out of here and go see your sister!" She stood up and approached him cautiously.

"You're good," he permitted as she came up and kissed both cheeks. He turned around to leave after giving her a hug and she slapped his butt.

He looked over his shoulder and knitted his brow. "Yes?"

"You should go for the white-shirt crisp look more often. It looks good on you."

"Yeah, we'll see," he said the same thing he always said when Penelope gave him fashion tips. Did he ever follow them? Once, when she said his hair looked better longer. He had agreed.

And now it could never grow again.


	3. Haley

**A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoy.**

**Three**

Spencer walked in and began to lock his first dead-bolt when he felt another presence in the room with him. He wrinkled his brow as he realized it was another _person_, a human. He had come to discover that they all had their own smells. Garcia smelled a lot like bubble-gum. This smell? It actually smelled like an old, good book. Female.

He whirled around and engulfed his sister in under a second. "Haley, oh God, there you are."

"Spence, you're like a block of _ice_!" she exclaimed as she started to shiver. "Are you okay? Do you need to go to the…" her voice trailed off as she got her first glimpse of her brother's face. "What happened?" she asked.

"Are you all right?" he asked first, letting her go and grabbing a blanket for her, which she promptly wrapped around herself. "Did you have any problems on the way up?" he prodded with genuine concern.

"No, Spencer, the ride here was fine. I'm fine. You aren't. _What happened_?" she brought the blanket around her more and gaped at Spencer, the dim light of the lamps making her angular face look a little more round. Spencer looked over her normally light brown hair now showed all the different color strands: brown, black, gold, even some reds. She had grown it out so it fell in waves down to the small of her back. Still, the Reid showed through in her slightly sunken-in eyes and her lanky height. Spencer could tell that her beautiful mind was plugging away at finding a solution; any logical thing would work for her. She, like her brother, refused to believe what first came to surface.

He sat down and indicated that she should too, to which she obliged. "Do you really want to hear?" he asked her, looking dead at her face.

"They're black," she whispered. "Your eyes are black."

"Do you?" he persisted quietly. The absolute last thing he wanted in the world was for his sister to be afraid of him. _He_ could be afraid of himself; he would even let Penelope be afraid, but never Haley. He never ever wanted Haley to be afraid of him.

"Yes," she murmured, cuddling in the blanket with a pillow on the opposite side of the couch than he. "Tell me everything."

So he did, beginning with the walk home from the BAU to walking into the apartment and finding her there. "How did you get in?" he asked, wrinkling his brow at her.

"I have keys," she said, looking past Spencer at the wall. "Spence… I think that you, and this might sound really, _really_ irrational, but you might be a-."

"Don't say it," he said through gritted teeth, not looking at her but ahead at the opposite wall. But that wasn't enough to keep his little sister from seeing his fangs turn his teeth into a ferocious snarl, to keep her from seeing the way his face twisted at the thought of his true being, his black eyes seeming to grow larger.

"Spencer," she said in a wavering voice.

He snapped to and looked at her, curled into the fetal position, pressing herself against the arm of the couch as hard as she could, almost trying to get away. Tears were dancing in her bright blue eyes, a trait from Diana's side of the family. He didn't have to ask; fear was written across her face.

"I'm sorry," he buried his head in his hands. "I don't know what to do," he moaned. "I really, truly don't know what to do."

Still recovering from the shock of seeing Spencer's beautiful features suddenly growing fierce and dangerous, she tried to speak. "Y-… You ne-ed to… to…"

He looked at her attentively. "Its okay, Haley, I won't do that again, I promise," he said, trying to reach his hand out to grab her knee reassuringly, but she shrank back involuntarily from his touch. He sighed in anger at himself.

"Don't be mad," she managed to sputter, shaking, but this time it wasn't because of the cold. "Don't degrade yourself." Her voice began to become a little more solid with each word. "You need to see what you can do."

"Meaning?" he genuinely asked.

"Can you be in the sun?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"Deterrence to garlic?" she managed to giggle a little.

Spencer couldn't help but smile at her little joke. "There's only one way to find out," he grinned. "You know where it is?" he asked as she stood and walked toward the kitchen.

She jumped with a little "Eep!" escaping her lips as she walked past the counter and saw the floors. "Oh, Spence… that's not a… that's not a person, is it?" she asked shutting her eyes tightly and plugging her nose, going back to the other side of the counter. She hated blood.

"I wouldn't ever," he muttered, going to the mess and running a hand through his hair with an exasperated sigh. "That's bloody hamburger meat. I've got this, Haley. You go get comfortable."

"Well, you can't say I'd really be completely comfortable," she said awkwardly. "No offence, but you kind of freak me out a little."

"I understand. I do that to a lot of people," he murmured, still looking at the mess rather than making an attempt to clean it.

"Okay," she said. She stopped and looked down at her feet, then looking where her brother was. "Spence?"

"Here," he said and she peered over the counter and watched him scrub for a minute.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I've actually been thinking," he said and stood up at the sink to rinse the sponge out, Haley unable to look at the bloody water that came out of it. She nearly blanched at the sight of it.

Noticing how pale she had become, Spencer put the bloody sponge out of her sight, watching as the color slowly returned to her face. "Anyway," he continued. "I'm going to see if I can go into work tomorrow."

"You don't even know if you can go into the sunlight," Haley reasoned, leaning against the counter, watching him go down again to scrub.

"And I won't know until I try," he raised his eyebrows at her. "Consider it an experiment."

"An experiment that could _kill_ you!" she burst.

Spencer came up on the other side of the counter, resting his head on his hands, nearly nose to nose with Haley. "Hales, I think I might already be," he said softly, almost apologetically.

"You're still here, moving, talking… _feeling_, right? You feel?" she asked, almost in a peak of interest. Like he was a test subject as opposed to a brother. He didn't mind, he did the same thing with her when she was a teenager.

"I do," he said, pushing back from the counter and going back to his cleaning. He was almost done. "I feel… acutely, more so than I've ever felt before."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"That accredits the mood swings, I guess," he mumbled as he stood, done.

"I'm sorry," Haley said again.

"Don't be. I should be sorry. I've completely ruined this holiday for you, I apologize."

Haley smirked, "You're so weird, Spence. Stop saying you're sorry. None of this is your fault." She waited for him to respond: instead, he tensed and snapped his head to the door. "What is it?"

"Get in the closet, Hales," he said so quietly it wasn't even a whisper, but he never took his eyes from the door. "_NOW_!"

She saw his expression and ran to the coat closet, shutting the door quietly behind her as she took in the smell of wool all around her in the darkness. She struggled to control her breathing as she heard what sounded like a growl, a real, honest to God growl, rip from Spencer's chest.

The man from the night on the subway had come back, still clad in his filthy hood. He smiled, pulling it off to reveal his white, bald scalp. "Hello Spencer," he said in a deep bass, hushed; this greeting was exclusively for Spencer.

Spencer's eyes flashed. "What do you want?" he asked in a quick whisper. "What the _hell_ did you do to me?"

"You know what I did," the man said, looking up at the young genius. Reid was used to it; most everyone was shorter than him. "Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if you like it. _Cold heifer meat_? Honestly, I _know_ you can do better than that."

"Who would?" from between gritted teeth.

"Well, I do," the man said. "Oh and Spencer, you're _perfect_. I was looking everywhere for someone just like you."

"Good, you've found me. Leave."

"But I want you to join me," he raised his eyebrows in earnest. "I could teach you the way to live like this! Answer your burning questions. You could learn so much, Spencer, live to see the end of time with me. Your genius could only grow."

Reid paused to think about it. It was tempting, all the knowledge he would want. But for how many human lives? What would be the cost? "Thank you for the offer, but you can get out now."

"I don't think you understand," the man's voice grew harsher. "You don't understand at all. This isn't an _offer_, this isn't a _request_. This is a mandate. You'll come with me."

"Get. Out."

"Why do you want me gone, hm?" he grinned at the younger vampire. "Could it be the girl in the closet?" The man raced to the coat closet and stopped, looking at Spencer and chuckling.

--

Haley could only hear muffled voices and shuffling of feet. That's all. A scuffle, and suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. They did that now when Spencer came near her, but this wasn't him. She knew what Spencer's presence felt like and this was definitely not it. The light under the crack of the door moved and she realized that the other person was just outside of it. He laughed.

As the stranger flung the door open and bared his fangs, a blur crashed into him with the sound of two boulders smashing each other. Haley managed to produce a squeaking noise as she stuck her head out. "Don't touch her!" Spencer shouted as he grabbed the man's neck and began to squeeze.

The man only laughed. "And what did you think that would do?" He grinned as he threw Spencer off and into the other room like a rag doll and approached Haley.

She saw him coming and had run into the kitchen to grab a knife out of the holder on the counter. He strolled in and walked right up to her. "Don't hurt Spencer," she said in a shaking voice, hating herself for it. She held up the knife. "Don't hurt Spencer!" she said a bit more strongly.

The man began to walk up to her confidently, grinning and exposing his fangs. He came within three feet of her, disregarding the long cutting knife in her trembling hand. Now within half a foot, he took the knife and pushing himself into it as he continued to move forward, all the while smiling. "I'm not going to hurt you," he smiled as he watched the horror on her face. Black blood was dripping down her arm and onto the floor from where she still held the handle of the knife.

"You smell so nice, though," he tilted her head up to his face.

"Get away from me!" she protested, trying to move her head from his iron touch. She saw Spencer stagger into the kitchen behind them. "Get out of here!" she shouted into his face.

He looked around at the damage he had done, the disarray of the apartment, and nodded, as if satisfied with his work. He let go of Haley, backed out of the knife and began to walk toward the door. Haley put a hand on her brother's shoulder to keep him there. He knew that if he moved then he might hurt her, and that was the last thing he wanted; Haley knew this.

The siblings coldly watched the man shuffle out and pause at the door, casting a look over his shoulder. "You _will_ wind up joining me, Spencer," he snickered. "Even if it takes changing that pretty one there, you will join me."

Spencer literally hissed at him as the door slammed shut.

"Oh, God," he straightened up and cracked his back, which had been actually bent out of shape when he had been thrown. Haley winced as he fixed it and stood erect once more. "What have I done?"

"Nothing," Haley said. "None of this is your fault. I'll help clean this up, but then I'm sleeping. It's late and… well, I'm really, really tired and I need to sleep on this."

"I understand," Spencer nodded. "You go ahead and do what you need to. I'll think on it a little more."

Haley nodded and looked up at her brother's pale, beautiful face. She timidly approached and stood on her toes, boldly kissing him on the forehead. "`Night," she said.

He stared at her as she walked away, the closest he had let anyone get to him that day, a very bold and potentially idiotic move on her part. "Goodnight," he stammered, but she had already closed the door of her room.

He began to clean as silently as possible, trying to let her have her sleep, unable to have his own. After, he sat on the couch and could think of nothing else to do but wait for her to wake up.


	4. The Sun and Morgan

**A/N: There is a twist at the end of this story, by the way. I don't know if I mentioned it before. If anyone can figure it out, I'd like to hear your theories. Please let me know, and as per usual, review!**

**Four**

6: 50 AM. Spencer looked up from his tenth book of the night at the window, _Faust_. He could feel the sun coming; it pulled at every pore in his body, almost beckoning him forth. It was in this moment that he realized that he loved the sun, adored it. He longed to feel its warmth lap at his icy skin. He put his book down and wandered over to the window; barely feeling his feet touch the ground as he did so. He pulled up the blind and put his fingertips up to the glass, the sensation was odd. It was supposed to be cold, seeing how this was a bleak December morning, but it felt as though he were touching his own face, a feeling he had become accustomed to this past night.

He waited more, the anticipation was building in his heart and he wished Haley were there to see him. If not to share his first moment in the sun, then to observe the decomposition process. It was a morbid thought, but if anyone were to have the true knowledge of how he died, he wanted it to be her. He took in a breath and exhaled, watching with a strange delight as the glass frosted, then melted.

Suddenly, the first rays tentatively reaching above the skyline to light the world. A dazzling color to his new eyes, deep purple fading to a sunflower yellow. He pressed further into the window, not daring to go too far, lest he break the glass. His skin was elated at the touch, his mind in euphoria. He could! He could feel the gentle touch of the delicate sun's tendrils without harm, quite the opposite. The bright fiery orb was like a healing draught to him, more fulfilling than the raw meat at night, more desirable than human blood. He forced himself to look away from the sun and to his hand, which hadn't left the window. There was no burning sensation, and he watched as it browned slightly, losing its white incandescence. Shoving back into the darkness, he looked with wonder as it returned sharply to the harsh pale sheen of the night.

Quickly, he began to lift every blind of every window, so that the delicious sunlight could fill his apartment, and he would never be without it. His rapid motions nearly broke the flimsy cream-colored panels, and when they gave him a hard time, they were promptly ripped away. Who needed those things anyway? Who would want to stay away from this beauty? This pool of golden life?

The shirt Garcia had lent him was soon on the floor, the filling light reaching nearly everywhere on his body. He fell to the floor in delight of it, letting the sun soak him. He closed his eyes and basked.

--

"Spencer?" he hardly heard the concerned voice. "_Spence_?" she shrieked. Suddenly a presence by his side. Hands frantically feeling for vital signs that wouldn't ever be there. He sensed her feeling of failure as she began to push at his side. "Get up. GET UP!"

"`Morning Hales," he came to enough to tell her.

She screamed again falling back. He leapt up and looked at her curiously. He could hear her heart palpitating faster than normal, and saw her clutching it. "You'll send me into cardiac arrest doing that!" she shouted at him. "If you're alive, then let me know you're alive! Goodness! I nearly cried!"

"I'm sorry," he grinned, not able to stop grinning. The sun felt so good. He looked at the clock and sighed. He needed to go to work again, he absolutely had to. As lovely as the sun felt, he loved his work and his job, his life. He sighed at this: his human life was to never be obtained again. "How long was I out of it?" he couldn't necessarily call what he did sleeping, more daydreaming. He was still very aware off his surroundings.

"I don't know when you fell asleep. It's about seven thirty," she said, nodding toward the kitchen clock.

"I've gotta get to the BAU," he pushed himself off of the carpet and ran to his bedroom, throwing on a pair of khakis, a red collared shirt, with a grey-ish sweater over it. He walked out, looping his belt as Haley protested.

"It's great that you look… not like yourself, but like a _human_ in the sun. That's great, but that guy is still out there, possibly for me," she raised her eyebrows. She smoothed the red collar over the wool of the sweater out of habit. "And… and what about… _blood_? How long has it been since you've eaten?"

"I don't need it right now," he said and indicated the radiance pouring through the open windows. "The sun takes care of it; it does the same thing that blood does for me."

"What if the man comes back? You can walk in the sunlight, so he can as well."

"I don't think he knows that yet," Spencer said and led her to his open laptop on the coffee table. "He obviously researched: he knows the need for us to be in a… like a pack, and he knows of our need to feed on human blood; not raw steaks but warm, human blood. But, because he researched, he never got what it was like for… for one of us… to be in the sunlight. I looked all over last night, there is no accurate description of what it's like. He didn't seem like the kind of man to experiment or take such a risk, not with the way he left last night."

She looked at the sunlight romantically. "What _is_ it like?"

"You don't feel the warmth?" he asked, confused.

Haley laughed. "Of all the things you forget, you forget why humans cover the windows during winter. It's freezing. You destroyed all the blinds," she pointedly looked at the disheveled piles of plastic lying in heaps around the room.

"Oh, er, yeah, sorry about that. I just got really, really excited," he grinned at her.

"Well, you'll be the one fixing them later, so who am I to complain?" she smiled like a smart-alek.

"Yes, yes I will fix those and try to be more careful tomorrow," he said, looking past her at the clock. "I'll be back, okay?"

"Yeah. Go. It's too late to take a train, you know," she called after him as she watched him go down the hall.

"You know? I think I'll walk!" he called as he descended.

--

Reid walked into the bullpen a minute later, trying not to walk too quickly, but also trying not to look like he was still infirm. He could only dream that his team wouldn't notice, but who was he kidding? They were all profilers. The first person to come up to him was Garcia.

"Hello, my Next Top Model," she said accusingly. "What are you doing here?"

"Penelope, I'm fine."

"No, no see, you aren't. Watch how you hold your jaw, I could see those pointy pearly whites from my room and you know what a distance that is."

"So they're really big, huh?"

"Not so noticeable if you hold your jaw the right way like I pointed out," she offered. "But I thought you couldn't go into the sun," she marveled at him, the darker pale color of his skin, resembling but never achieving the actual shade of pale that was Spencer.

"Why can't he do that?" Moran smiled, coming up behind her. "Hey, man, I heard you were down for the count!" He held out his fist.

"Thanks, man," Reid raised his fist to meet that of his friend. He paused, flashed a toothless smile, and realized that Morgan wanted him to answer the sun question. He thought quickly. "This medicine the doctor has me on is really bad for the melanin levels of the skin and increase the risk of—"

"Okay, okay, I didn't need _that_ much information. You'll burn easy, I get it. Listen, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Did you get my message?"

"I got a lot of messages. I wasn't really… aware of myself enough to really comprehend them. Why worry about me specifically?"

Garcia sat down on the edge of Spencer's desk. "I didn't want to tell you this last night, sweetie, because you were so upset, but the case we got yesterday was… well… it was a little disturbing."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"A serial killer: white, male, in his mid thirties, and possibly with a life-long injury administered to him in the recent past. He's here in Quantico, Reid, and he's killing white men in their mid to late twenties. All tall, all with brown hair, all with a reported IQ over 180," Morgan said seriously. "Sound like anyone we know?" Morgan squinted. "You okay? You seem a little off to me."

Reid leaned back in his chair, mouth agape. He fit the type. The man in black fit the description of the killer perfectly. The man had told Spencer that he had been searching, had he been testing as well? Was he the last one?

"Reid!" Morgan jerked Spencer back to the present by shaking him. He jerked his hand back from the younger agent's shoulder with a wide-eyed stare. "You sure you're okay, man?"

"Derek, he's fine," Garcia said quickly, trying to cover.

"What's been into you today, baby girl?" he asked Garcia, looking from her to Reid. "Okay, us three, in the storage closet, _now_." He began to walk away followed quickly by Spencer and Penelope. He looked again at her hand and punched himself mentally. How could he be so careless?

Once inside the dark closet, Spencer felt himself go frigid again and long for the sunlight. Morgan flipped the light on and looked at the other two agents. "All right. We're all alone, no one listening in. Can we talk?"

"Yeah," Spencer said, looking at his shoes, then at Morgan. "Yeah, I… I think that I may be the last person of that type who's died, Morgan."

"You're _what_?"


	5. Ring Ring

**A/N: Thank you so much for your guesses… and I'll go ahead and say that someone **_**touched**_** the actual ending. Yay you! As always, please review!**

**Five**

The mingling of Garcia's bubble-gum scent with Morgan's charcoal aroma, plus the idea that the sun's rays were just outside of the supply closet nearly drove Spencer mad. He felt caged, isolated, and suddenly very, very cold. Then he heard Morgan advance his inquiry. "What do you mean, Reid?"

He could just barely focus his attention on Morgan, not the smell of Morgan, just Morgan. "I… ah… I think I'm the unsub's last victim. He won. He was out on a mission to find the perfect… perfect companion I assume, and he found me, made me what he wanted to make me, and left."

Morgan gave Reid a look, glancing up and down. "What did me make you?" he asked.

"Morgan, I'd really rather not say. I won't even let Haley or Penelope say it. Let's just say that I'm really, _really_ far from what left the BAU a few days ago."

"Okay then," Morgan agreed, knowing that if his friend didn't want to share it with him, then it must be something that he didn't want to hear, or something he wouldn't believe. Morgan already had a few ideas floating around. "Well, how do you know that this is what he wanted?"

"He tried to tell me, last night. Only I was worried for Haley, so I didn't really hear him out."

"Worried for Haley?" Morgan asked.

"Never mind that, all part of the 'Reid Doesn't Want You to Know' thing," Garcia said. "He came last night?" she asked worriedly.

"Yeah, he tried to get me to come with him. It was… intriguing to say the least, but I wouldn't have gone with him anyway," he said.

"What was intriguing?" Morgan demanded. "Reid, this is an actual case, regardless of how much you are involved. It's not helping that you two are holding something back from me that seems essential to finding this guy!"

"Derek," Garcia whispered. "Calm down, if Spencer doesn't want to tell you, then he has the right-"

"Garcia, he's right," Spencer said, looking around the small closet. Then to the crack of light under the door, how the sunlight beckoned for him to go into it. He began to yearn for it harder. He sighed. "I don't want to say it though. Morgan," he began, but looked down at his feet. "You know, I'm still the same person. I'm still Spencer. I'm still the guy you joke around with day-to-day. You gave me dating tips. Just… just don't freak out."

"Why would I-?" he broke off before he could finish the sentence as Reid opened his mouth to the point where the older agent could see the fangs. "Oh, God… You've… Damn…"

If he could have blushed, he would have. This was worse than the philosophy joke in front of the college class. And of all the emotions he thought he could have felt, why would embarrassment be the one emotion? Maybe because he himself thought the whole notion was kind of silly.

"Reid, man, you've got to tell me what happened," Morgan said.

Spencer nodded and recounted the story watching his friend closely as he nodded, grunted, and shook his head at certain parts of the tale. Once he had finished, Morgan stood silently. "You know, I don't think you're what you think you are."

"Come again?" Penelope smiled.

"I don't think Reid's a vampire," he clarified. "I think he thinks he is."

"And I think that this goes a little beyond thought, Morgan," Reid made sure to flash his fangs.

"Oh don't go showing those to me to try to prove a point!" Morgan said. "You yourself told me that if the mental is strong enough it can try to physically manifest itself. You did! Maybe the idea of a man in black stalking you and attacking you in the night… well… that might have stricken some sort of fantasy in your head. Some way of trying to cope with it, you know? Your brain went wild, and let's face it, you have a lot of brain to go wild with."

"And what? It started producing chemicals to make the enamel on my teeth longer? Make me start craving… well, let's say raw meat for now?"

"I'm sure those exist," he said. "And your speed and strength? Adrenalin, more than likely," he concluded.

"It's a good theory, but… Morgan, I doubt it. First because you don't know all the details, you don't know the half of it. Second: why would this man have the same thing happening to him? The physical manifestation in one person is implausible enough, but in two people in the same city at the same time? Nearly im_possible,_" he answered himself. "Morgan, you should have seen the messes I've made in both my house and Penelope's."

"Well, after hearing about the encounter last night, my house not so much as yours," she conceded. "I only gave you a bite to eat."

"And I thank you for that," Reid said. "I didn't say so last night, but thanks."

"Getting back to the subject," Morgan coughed. "It doesn't matter if you've somehow morphed into a mythical being, or if it's that big head of yours going crazy, this guy's hurt you and killed about five others. And he's good, you've met him twice, intimately, might I add, and you still haven't caught his name."

"I can't figure out a way to find him either," Reid said a bit desperately. Then he jumped as his phone rang. "Haley," he gasped as he reached for his holster and opened the phone in a split-second. "You okay?" he asked, black eyes wide. "What?... Okay, okay, I'm coming over… Right now! I'm on my way over right now!... see you in a few minutes…" he hung up.

"Is she okay?" Garcia's voice jumped up a few octaves.

"She's not hurt, just scared," Reid said, folding the phone back and putting it into his holster. "The man… he's got my number."

"I know he's after you, but you're not going to die yet," Morgan said sternly.

"No, Morgan, you didn't understand. He's got my _number_, my phone number. He's been calling the house all morning threatening my sister."

"Then that could be where we start," Garcia said hopefully. "I could help with that. Let me grab my laptop and I'll be ready to go with you guys."

"You two don't have to come," Reid said, going for the door.

"Oh, but we do, darling, you know that," Penelope pushed past him, the door flinging wide.

"Yeah, man, don't try to be a lone wolf with this guy," Morgan admonished. "This is a BAU case after all." Morgan smiled at him, trying to lighten the mood.

"Yeah, have fun writing up the case file," Spencer raised his eyebrows as he left the closet, Morgan following closely.

--

As they pulled up to Spencer's apartment complex, Morgan noticed Reid grow stiff, a slightly paranoid look come over him. "You okay, sweets?" Garcia asked him.

"No, I'm fine," Spencer gave her a mixed answer. "Just park, Morgan, it doesn't really matter where."

"Okay, man," Morgan relented. The second the vehicle was set to PARK, Spencer was out of the car and out of sight of the two agents, who could only run after him.

Five minutes and one very out of breath Penelope later, they found Spencer at the door, pleading with his younger sister. "Hales, it's me, you've got to believe it's me."

"I don't know that," she said, muffled to Morgan and Garcia, but clear as a bell to Spencer.

"We're here with him!" Penelope said. "Baby, it's okay, we're here to help." She slapped her hand on the door thrice. "Baby, it's okay!"

Suddenly, Spencer threw himself back against the wall, grasping his head, the sensation that someone was driving a nail through his forehead overwhelmed him. "Baby, it's okay!" resonated throughout the hallway as Garcia kept pounding the door. Did no one notice? A flash of white and he suddenly looked up at Penelope who was wearing a worried face, repeating her mantra.

"Pen?" he asked weakly.

"Good, honey, good," she said, relieved, but the nail driving through his brain stopped, and he snapped back to the present.

He looked back to the door, Haley had opened it and was running at him and into his arms. Spencer held her close and looked, worried, over her head and into the apartment. _Someone_ had seen his episode, right?

Apparently not. He followed Garcia and Morgan into the messy living room. "I'm sorry I didn't pick up," Haley admitted. "I was going to take a shower first and then the man called. I was too afraid to move."

"It's perfectly all right," Spencer said, his voice fading, overcome by a foreign smell. "Were you cooking anything?"

"I ate a bowl of cereal," she said. "But no, I hadn't made anything else. What do you smell?"

"Like something burned," he murmured. He didn't stop his body from crouching lower to the floor to better acquaint itself with the scent. He could only assume that it was the man's. "Burned… like burned… burnt oregano? Yeah, burnt oregano."

"I don't smell anything," Morgan said, not disrespectfully, but with a lack of understanding as he leaned against the back of the couch. "Nothing at all."

"You know what happened to him, right?" Haley asked with raised eyebrows. "He smells things that… I don't even think a K9 dog could."

"Could… could you guys just stay in one clumped up spot please?" Reid asked, straightening. "You're muddling up the… you're messing up my tracking," he spit out, revolted enough that he could say that and be serious.

"You can _smell_ us?" Penelope laughed, clearly and strangely delighted.

"Yeah…" Reid's voice trailed off as he began to crouch over and shuffle through the house, following the scent in the exact pattern the man had walked the night before. "This is definitely his smell. I was too distracted by Haley last night to really register, but this is absolutely him. I'd recognize it anywhere now."

"What do I smell like?" Pen continued.

"Bubble gum," Spencer waved off. "Anyways, we'd have to walk, but I think I can-"

"Wait a minute," Morgan said, standing up again. "How do you know that this is reliable?"

"Morgan, I think this time, you just have to trust me. There are a lot of ways that I can prove this to you, but right now we don't have any time. Haley's in danger. And so are you and Garcia for even being around me. But if you want a more clear way of catching him, then Garcia needs to get out her stuff," Reid said a bit defensively. "Haley, how often has he been calling?"

"Every thirty minutes or so."

"Do you think you can answer the phone again?" he asked her in earnest.

"Yes," she muttered.

"And keep him talking?"

"Yes," she breathed, going to the phone. She nodded at the clock. "He should be calling around now. He doesn't call every thirty minutes exactly, there's normally a five minute window around the dot."

"Got it up. Any call that comes through now should be completely traceable by _moi_," Penelope said happily. "Sweetheart, you'll do just fine."

"I'm not even sure what to say. I've just been hanging up," she said nervously.

"I'll help you out there," Reid said, sitting on the counter next to where Haley stood, watching the portable phone set. He grabbed her shoulder, not squeezing for fear of hurting her. He looked again at Penelope's sprained wrist and mentally scolded himself.

A sudden, sharp chirping ring of the portable sounded twice. Haley reached for it only to be stopped by Spencer, who had raised his eyebrows in admonition. It rang a second time, a third… "Halfway through the final ring," Spencer mouthed, instructing.

Haley picked up right on cue. "Hello?"


	6. Greene

**Six**

"Don't hang up this time," came the harsh voice of the other vampire, the one in black. A shower of different clacks from Garcia's keyboard filled the room as she tried to find him.

Spencer was listening in, he could clearly hear his voice on the other line as though he were standing in the Spencer's kitchen as well. '_Tell him you won't._' he said next to silently.

"I won't hang up on you," Haley said quickly.

'_Keep him on.'_

"Erm… why are you calling here?" she asked, a little shakily. "What do you want from me?"

A chuckle on the other end of the line that twisted Spencer's face, his eyes growing darker if it was seemingly possible. He shook off his rage as he listened to the other man. "To get to know you better," he said silkily. "I do want to know if we'll get along once I form my coven with you and your brother."

"Wh-what?"

"If he won't come with me himself, I'll have to give him an ultimatum, don't I? Don't take it personally; it's just a tried and true negotiations tactic. He should know all about those," he said. The man seemed taunting, cocky, and he was attempting to be soothing to Haley. As if trying to convince her that it would be all right to have to live like a heathen.

Haley looked up at Spencer with wide eyes.

'_Name?_' he managed to mouth while looking calm, a difficult feat with what the man was saying.

"Can't I know your name?" Haley asked, trying to match his tone. Then, switched tactics. "I mean, if I'm going with you, then can't I know what it is?"

"What's that noise?" he hissed. A silence on both lines as Garcia stopped clacking, her nails against the keyboard were the culprits of this new danger zone. "It's gone now, but you heard it. I know you did. What was that noise?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Haley said, her voice jumping a couple of octaves. She hated herself for it.

"_You_ _know damn well what I mean_!" he shouted, she had to pull the receiver away from her ear, and Morgan could plainly hear it from his spot across the room. "You're an awful liar."

"WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH US?" Haley broke.

"_NO!_" Spencer lunged for the phone and turned it off as he broke it from Haley's grasp.

Haley recoiled, looking fearfully at Spencer's disheveled hair, trying to control the anger on his face. He turned from her, putting the phone gently back into its holder and ran his hand through his hair, in an attempt to look calmer.

Taking a deep breath, he turned around to look at the rest of the room.

"I'm sorry, I… I didn't know what to say… he wants to hurt you and…" Haley choked, still not approaching him, hurting Spencer worse than anything the man could do.

Reid pulled Haley to him and wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in her hair, scared for her life. He looked up at the surprised face of Morgan, broke away quickly to the nervous Penelope, and then focused on calming his little sister. "I'm sorry I got you involved," he mumbled, addressing the room as a whole as opposed to one single person.

"Reid, we need to be involved," Morgan took his stance. "It's a _federal_ case now, and Haley's a victim. We _have_ to be involved."

"Got it!" Penelope chirped and smiled at the two male agents' stares of disbelief. "What? Did you think I was over here crying about it? Come here. The guy was calling from a payphone on the east end of Potomac Avenue-"

"Baby cakes, that's only a payphone. You couldn't have poss-"

"Oh contraire!" she countered his interruption. "There was a security camera on the building adjacent to the payphone in question that captured the man on the phone. I high jacked its signal and I'm going to clear up the image a bit," she mumbled, now to herself, as her fingers flew over the keys. "Got it!"

"Who is it?" Spencer asked.

"Christopher Greene, age 38, born February 23, 1969… um… died August 29, 2008."

"What?" Haley looked up, more in horror of the fact of the situation rather than the discovery of her newly-acquired stalker's name. "He's dead?"

"So am I," Spencer mumbled and rolled his eyes.

"Shut up," she hit his chest, and moved to Garcia's screen. "Melodramatic… Anyways, if he's dead, he won't have an address, or a phone number, or taxes, or anything we could hit up that would lead us to him," she muttered.

"Reid, where would you go?" Morgan asked.

"Well, seeing how I haven't been 'found' dead, I have no idea. There wouldn't be anywhere to go, would there?" he shrugged and walked to the window to bask some more in the afternoon sun, wondering more about what he'd do when the sun slid under the horizon for the night than where he'd go if he were homeless.

"It's your area," Garcia raised her eyebrows at Morgan.

"He's a narcissistic loner," Reid said from his position at the window, looking over his shoulder. "He relies on the fear from others to boost his own ego; he believes himself to be fear embodied."

"Yeah," Haley pitched in. "When I knifed him last night, he backed off. I wasn't afraid of him, so he felt he had no power over me."

"Right," Spencer nodded.

"Wait, you _knifed a vampire_?" Penelope interjected.

"Besides the point," Haley waved off.

"I'd go to my own grave," Morgan realized. "Obsessed with himself and fear, what's scarier than seeing someone that's supposedly dead and buried standing near his own grave?"

"That's freaky, I'm gonna go ahead and say it," Garcia agreed.

"He knows that he can be in the sunlight," Reid muttered. "Unless the phone was under an awning, but then, how would he get from his daytime hiding spot to the phone without encountering sunlight?" He put his hand out, turning it in the sun's rays, relishing the tickle of warmth on his cool skin.

"I could check, but I need my big computers," Garcia pouted. "Back at the BAU."

"I'll stay and man the home front," Haley offered with a stern look from Spencer.

"No," both he and Morgan said at the same time.

"You have to be with us," Morgan said. "He's contacted you, and he won't stop until he's got you."

Haley nodded and then looked down at her clothes. "Yeah, we'll go after I change out of my pajamas."

"Did you get any new things?" Garcia asked excitedly, standing, ready to accompany her.

"A couple… Christmas present to myself… wanna see?" Haley broke out into a smile.

"Yes!" Penelope squealed as the two girls ran into Haley's old room.

Morgan rolled his eyes at Spencer, who still stood in the window, looking at the sun.

"That not hurt your eyes?"

"Why would it?" Spencer mused.

"I don't know, they're pretty dilated, I'd think that would hurt more than usual," Morgan reasoned out.

Reid opened his mouth like he was about to say something but closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He could smell the sun just outside his window, he almost felt ready to break the pane.

"Reid?" Morgan said a little loudly. "Hey, Doc!" he shouted.

Suddenly, as Spencer turned around to face the older agent, the flash of white returned, with the same head splitting pain along with it. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again looking up in a light far too bright for human eyes. He squinted.

"Hey, Doc," came Morgan's gentle voice. Somehow, he could tell that Derek was smiling. "You gonna wake up? Come on, Reid."

As suddenly as it hit, Reid was dragged back to his living room, looking at Morgan chide him. "You gonna stand there and daydream or are you going to answer my question?" he lifted an eyebrow.

"Oh, um, no. It doesn't hurt at all. I really don't know why. I like looking at it."

"I guess it would be kind of pretty, you know, if I could look at it without going blind," Derek laughed, coming up to Spencer's window. "Damn, it's chilly over here. I can see why Haley would complain about the shades being ripped off."

"I guess I don't feel it," Spencer said again, wondering if Derek had seen his second episode, or if it had passed him by in much the same way as it passed by Garcia. Did it mean that he really was dying, just breaking down slowly? Or did it mean he was growing insane, in the way that Christopher Greene had?

"Let's hit the road!" Garcia called out as she and Haley marched through the front door, jerking Spencer and Derek back to the real situation. "Come on! Back to the grindstone!"


End file.
